A Trilogy of BRT (2) Unloved Sydney

Anyone familiar with Sydney's public transport will know the traditional heavy rail network (with the double decker trains) has been enhanced in recent years by the addition of several light rail/tram lines and most recently Sydney Metro - much of which is still under construction. However, as an adjunct to looking at how Transport for NSW manage rail replacement services, I also looked at one of the older pieces of infrastructure, the Sydney busway, or 'T-Way'.  The T-Way is  mixture of dedicated and segregated lanes running between two large urban centres in western Sydney, Liverpool and Paramatta.  

What I found was a quite unloved system....

• Whilst segregated/separate lanes remain in place, they are quite overgrown with weeds
• The stops were run down, missing up to date information or vandalised
• The main route, the T80, was not operating with a dedicated bus fleet, as you might expect (and suspect was contracted) but rather any single deck bus from the Transit Systems fleet

Ticketing was quite conventional - Sydney has a touch-in/touch-out system for smart card users which I quite liked, even if on-bus ticketing and particularly fumbling to find a card to touch-off negates some journey time benefit of the segregated system.  The principle is the same as systems used by Go-Ahead in the UK. However with a couple of breaks of journey on the T80 what I saw was a notable amount of ticketless/fraudulent travel where passengers 'barged' on to board at the centre door.

Without knowing where to find the data to support this supposition, I suspect some of the areas served by the T-Way and T80 bus are not particularly economically prosperous.  Those customers often find it difficult to get the ear of politicians and transport authorities, so it feels a little like the T-Way has been left to fend for itself with little support from the centre, whilst politicians and leaders focus on the high profile new railways.  My brief visit to Newcastle NSW (with the same transport authority, Transport for New South Wales) the same week also showed a very notable degree of ticketless travel on the Newcastle tram line. 

Newcastle tram.

A Trilogy of BRT (1) Disastrous Bangkok

Bus Rapid Transit

I am currently taking a six month 'career break' and have based myself in Bangkok.  There is much to share about the assorted public transport in Bangkok but I am going to start with its single bus rapid transit (BRT) system.  The success of BRT in cities in south America (Curitiba and Bogota being the oft quoted examples) has seen the promotion of such systems in the developing world, in central Africa and the Far East.  My recent travels give me three operating BRT systems to write about, as well as the scheme under construction in Vientiane in my previous post.

Overview

Bangkok BRT is a single route that has been in operation since 2010.  It connects (in a fairly vague sense of the word) with the rail based rapid transit at both ends: to the east at Chong Nonsi station on the BTS Skytrain, and at the west Talat Phlu on the MRT subway. However, as is common in Bangkok the BRT stations carry different names (in this case, Sathorn and Ratchapruek are the corresponding BRT station names.)

The basic concept is similar to more developed systems, running in dedicated lanes on the off-side of the carriageway and island platforms. This necessitates vehicles with passenger doors on the off-side rather than the near-side.  The island stations located along Bangkok's busy highway system necessitates access by footbridge (solely; there are no tunnels).  The station concept is not dissimilar to my previous experience on Cape Town BRT. 

There have been questions about the longevity of Bangkok's BRT over it's fifteen year life: low ridership possibly being a factor of Bangkok's local buses often being surprisingly rapid despite the traffic levels, and the relatively low BRT frequency of every 10 minutes negating any in-vehicle time savings.

There have clearly been fundamental changes to the operating concept for Bangkok BRT since it opened: 

• Ticket offices: every rail/metro station has staffed ticket offices, and Bangkok BRT was built with these as well at every station.  However they are now all closed;
• Ticket gates and off bus ticketing: evidently the system was designed as 100% off bus ticketing and now every Bangkok BRT station has decommissioned ticket gates.  Ticketing is now flat fare paid on board the bus;
• Fares: it appears that there has been very lacklustre policing of ticketing, as every station has posters informing customers that the flat fare, 15 baht (around 35 pence) will be charged from 2024.

However the biggest change as been the switch from boarding high floor buses from platforms (like Curitiba, Cape Town q.v) to using low floor buses.  In 2024 a new fleet of electric buses built by CRRC (China) entered service and these are of a typical modern low floor design.  However this is incompatible with the high floor platforms, so at the end of every platform, a checkerplate ramp to ground level has been constructed, and new stop locations for the bus beyond the platform.  

At the time of my visits to Bangkok BRT in March and April 2025, some of the dedicated BRT lanes were closed to facilitate work on the adjacent banks of the canal that runs between the carriageways.  This means that BRT buses have to pull in to general traffic on the off-side, which isn't an easy manoeuvre in general Bangkok traffic where it is 'survival of the fittest/bravest' most of the time.

Stations

Overview of a Bangkok BRT ststion.  They are all very similar.  Overbridge, with access from street at both ends, and access to platforms in the centre. 

Every station has ticket machines that are no longer used. 

Just as every station has ticket barriers that are no longer used.

And ticket offices that are no longer used.

Dedicated Lanes

Bangkok BRT has dedicated lanes for the majority of the route. Towards the west they tend to be designated with road markings.

Towards the east they tend to have a physical segregation from general traffic.

Embankment work on the adjacent canal towards the east end of the route meant that the BRT lane was closed.  The physical segregation has been lifted and buses merge in to general traffic.  

BRT bus merging in to general traffic.  On this Saturday afternoon photograph traffic was quite light.  At the next station the alignment of the barriers would allow the bus to move back to its dedicated lane to serve the station.

Boarding 

The Sathorn terminus has this air conditioned in door platform.  This is a great facility at what should be one of the busiest stations with the interchange to the Skytrain.

However the platform is bult for high-floor level boarding. The access the current low floor buses customers must exit the platform, and go down these steps to access the bus.

.  

The paving at the revised stop is variable depending on what was therefore.  Often it's just some bitumen filling gaps.  There is no effort to provide a suitable kerb (or similar) for boarding, resulting in a fairly high step.  

This is a typical layout of the boarding area at Bangkok BRT stops.  The platform for the original high floor vehicles has had a surface level access added, in this case a ramp.

The original bus stopping location s shown by the yellow and red stripes: behind that can be seen the yellow surface paint showing where the new low floor buses stop. 

This is the Ratchapruek terminus at the west end.  Where once there was steps up to the platform (buses stop on the far side), there is now a ramp down t walk round the station  building to access the BRT bus.

As is the norm, there is no attempt at Ratchapruek to provide any kind of kerb to ease boarding the BRT buses. 

Vehicles

Since late 2024 Bangkok's BRT (route 462) has been operated by these electric buses manufactured by CRRC of China.  Whilst the offside door for BRT operation is visible, they have also been built with  nearside door allowing for use on conventional bus routes. However this won't happen imminently as the BRT is operated by BTS (hitherto operators of some of the elevated rail and monorail routes in Bangkok) and regulated by the MRTA - Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand.  This is all separate from municipal bus operations.  

Vehicle interior.  Typical modern bus, although they are little over ten metres long which doesn't afford for many seats.  There are wheelchair bays despite the inability for wheelchairs to board at many (if not all) stops. 

Other than a Thai bank QR code system (which is both incredibly common in Thailand and totally alien to westerners) the only other way to pay for the 15 baht flat fare is with a 'Rabbit' card, which is a proprietary pre-paid card issued by BTS.  There is presumably an assumption that tourists have n need to ever use the BRT as there is no 'visitor friendly' way of paying.  For the record I used by pre-paid Rabbit card to travel!

Concluding

There are many elements to a bus rapid transit scheme and it is very easy to focus on those which are easiest (either in construction, operation or long term funding requirement).  In the case if Bangkok this appears to have been the stations where ticket offices, ticket machines and ticket barriers are all now abandoned.  Other successful BRT schemes from Bogota Transmilenio to Istanbul Metrobus have similar, but support either a broad network of routes or a very very high frequency. 

The overarching design of Bangkok BRT has been to facilitate a very high frequency service, evidenced by the fact the infrastructure could not be used by any conventional buses.  However it has never achieved that and indeed was threatened with closure in 2017.  It is therefore not as popular as it could be because the higher frequency of local buses (or commination of local bus routes) on parallel sections allows for shorter wait times.

Beyond the journey time challenge, the latest developments also lead to a very customer unfriendly system.  There was originally level access (by lift or stair-lift) to and from tickets halls from both street and platform.  Now there is a variable mix of steps to road level, step to bus and miscellaneous kerbs for customers to handle.  It is impossible for wheelchairs/pushchairs and difficult for inform passengers.  As a rule you have to have a significant journey time advantage to go to the effort of using Bangkok BRT, and it seems few people do.  

Why not just buy new buses that could serve the existing platforms?  With so many systems requiring these in South America I am sure the likes of Marcopolo could supply a suitable new vehicle.  

Ticketing is equally poor: there is no ticket product available for visitors to Bangkok.  Yet the operator, BTS, and scheme promoter, MRTA, own various ticketing systems that allow tickets to be bought for travel on their other metro systems (although, these are all gated and tickets to suit that modus operandi.)

Which leads to the question of what has gone wrong?  I think it comes down to 'fashion'. When it was built, bus rapid transit systems were fashionable so there's a degree of 'me too' without a solid business case.  Is Bangkok BRT an answer looking for a problem? 

Currently electric buses are fashionable (and Thailand builds them) so again 'me too', even though the products [I assume] available were not fit for the infrastructure.  

Scheme development in the Far East also appears to not be subject to the project management/organisational scrutiny of those in the west. I will eventually blog about more schemes where there is a disconnect between planning, design and operations, where there is evidently no (or poor) 'sponsor' or 'integration' functions.

I have some thoughts on the causes of some of these project failures, but one for another day!

Part 2 in this series will be 'Unloved Sydney'

Public Transport in Vientiane, Laos (2) Urban Travel

Buses

Vientiane has a reasonable city bus network which is centered on a combined local bus and long distance coach station.  However, as the Vientiane bus network has evolved over the last couple of years so there seems to be quite a lot of out of date information on the 'net. Indeed there are some sites from only a few years ago that state there is no public transport system in the city including oe such site from 2017 linked fro the Wikipedia page for Vientiane.  This is probably the most up to date on-line map of the Vientiane bus network and also shows real time location of buses. The ThaiEst site looks like it has the latest timetables and fares for each route. 

Bus station

Bus station

Route network poster

Timetables on display at the bus station.  The lack of consistent format is frustrating!

Isuzu city bus mainly used on the route to the Friendship Bridge (Thai border crossing) and Budd Park, route 14.  Tickets for this route can be purchased in advance from the ticket office - indeed signage asks that you do so. However there is also a conductor on board not lease because of customers boarding at any other location.  Bodyside branding suggests these were a gift from Japan.

Mitsubishi minibus used on most city buses.  Branding on these also suggests they were a gift from Japan to aid Laos' economic and social development.

A JMMC (JingMa Motor Conpany) Co-Star minibus are also used.  The branding on these suggests they were bought for transport to an ASEAN conference in 2014 before entering the local bus fleet.

Typical bus stop although some are more grandiose affairs with shelters, and some attempt at information.

A very low capacity version of the Co-Star is used on airport route 33.  This is also be far the most expensive service at 40,000KIP (about £1.50) one-way

A cheaper way to/from the airport would be route 8 which passes the road entrance but does not go in to the terminal. 

Coaches

The coach services from Vientiane bus station primarily serve cross-border traffic to Udon Thani in Thailand.  Unlike the chaos of Udon Thani coach station, Vientiane is relatively calm and organised, not least because it comes with a proper ticket office and waiting area.  There are a variety of coach types in service, some with air conditioning and some without, and whilst I didn't check I am sure there is a fare differential to reflect this. The vehicles are all on the Laos register.

Ticket office: separate windows for each coach route as well as the local bus 14 mentioned above.

Songatheaw

Vientiane appears to have a small songtheaw network.  Any more information has been hard to come by - it's definitely a case of "if you know, you know, and if you don't know it's not for you!".  Here's one I saw.

Tuk Tuk

As stated in part 1, Vientiane uses tuk tuks as designed, as taxis.  Whilst they will attempt to overcharge around tourist attractions that's no different to taxis the world over.  Here's some tuk tuks on rank in central Vientiane.

Bus Rapid Transit

BRT is a popular means of enhancing urban transport in developing cities, most famously in cities such as Curitiba and Bogota and latterly in central Africa and Asia.  A three route BRT system is planned to open in mid-2025 in Vientiane, although I learnt about it when the letters 'BRT' caught my eye on some site boards!

There is this mildly amusing video from Laos TV news reporting on the delivery of the BRT buses from Chery & Wanda Guizhou Co of China (incidentally, order a double deck city bus from them and its only a 60-day lead time to delivery!).

To my very untrained eye it did appear that construction had halted on those parts of the BRT that I could see, but I did not explore all 30km+ of the network so it may well just be that construction phasing did not necessitate any work on the parts I could see.

Vientiane Sustainable Urban Transport is the project name of which BRT is one part,

Partially constructed BRT stop.

Public Transport in Vientiane, Laos (1) Taking the Train from Thailand

 I am now two months in to a career break, which has naturally taken me on many buses and metros, not all out of necessity!  It is therefore about time I wrote about some of them, and having a day 'at home' is finally an opportunity to do that.  So here are some photos and observations from a couple of days in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, in early 2025.

Part 1 Rail

Vientiane has two large, modern railway stations both opened in the last few years.  Both are located some distance from the centre of Vientiane.   The new Vientiane station is some 10 miles out of the city centre and has rail links to the north (to Luang Prabang in Laos and Mohen, Yunnan Province, China) which have been built/modernised by the Chinese 'Belt & Road' initiative.  On-line photos suggest some fancy looking rolling stock is employed by the Chinese.

However I arrived from Udon Thani in to Khamsavath station, a mere five miles from central Vientiane.  There are two trains a day through from Bangkok taking many hours, and two more 'short trips' from 'UD'.  I travelled on the 16:00 departure, which was formed of a Thai Alsthom-built locomotive and five carriages, a mix of second class with air conditioning and third class without. The second class carriages are former JR-West (Japan) carriages. Whilst ticket checks seemed numerous and excessive, starting with security guards in the UD station, this was probably to get over the language barrier and ensure everyone, such as the three westerners in my carriage, were on the right train. Despite five carriages the loading on the train barely reached double figures: the train staff motioned me and other customers out of their reserved seats in to seats that were not directly in the sun and this was very welcome!  

The train waiting at UD.

Departure board at UD station.

Second class interior.  The seats swivel 180 degrees to face the other way, if desired!

Border Crossing

Trains from Thailand to Laos cross the border at Nong Khai: domestic passengers can alight the international trains here, and there is also a more frequent service from Udon Thani operated by diesel multiple units.  It seems the majority of passengers on our train did indeed alight and as far as I can tell only six passengers were on the train for the border crossing, three westerners and three locals.  International passengers also needed to alight and formally exit Thailand: unlike at Bangkok's airports they stamp passports here.

After alighting the train and walking towards immigration the train shunts forward to collect its international load.

Immigration is at the chest height windows on the right,  no queue is always welcome!

Crossing the Friendship Bridge over the Mekong River, where the rail line and road are one so vehicular traffic is suspended to allow the train to run over.

Mid-1980s vintage Japanese DMU operating local services to the border town of Nong Khai.

The new economic order is very much on display in Laos with the majority of rail freight wagons and containers displaying Chinese ownership.

Arrival at Laos

The new station at Khamsaveth is little more than a year old, but has been built with traditional platforms only a few inches high, so no concept of level access or disability awareness here. It is at Khamsaveth that immigration in to Laos is performed.  Despite having an e-visa I still had to complete arrival forms which provide all the same information as in my e-visa application.  As an aside, the e-visa costs USD10 more than the visa on arrival (USD 50 vs USD 40) for no obvious benefit.  As a further aside, having a printed copy of my Thai Railways e-ticket and Laos e-visa appeared to speed things up! A final aside is that immigration likes crisp US dollar notes for their fee; e-visa is a little easier as you pay on-line. At least with only three westerners on the train immigration was fairly quick: there are six immigration counters in a style that will be familiar to anyone who's ever arrived in to a foreign country, but here they chose to use a small side window, again at stomach/chest height!  

Khamsaveth station is massive, and empty.  At 7pm there is no foreign exchange, no ATMs and for those so inclined no Laos SIM card retailer.  Another poor understanding of the role of an international railway station.  There did seem to be about a hundred people waiting post immigration for the retain train to Thailand, which would go overnight to Bangkok.  There was one waiting tuk tuk outside (in Udon and Vientiane tuk tuks are used as a regular taxi rather than the tourist traps they are in Bangkok).  I suspect I paid twice the 'locals' rate for the ride to my hotel: the other two westerners used a local app to hail a taxi.  The dust and fumes on road mean this is probably a preferable option.

Walking from the train to immigration

Passengers awaiting the return to Udon Thani and Bangkok

Local SIM card retailers missing the point!  

Ticker desks for both the China and Thailand trains.

Bank and the only currency exchange also not particularly useful for tourists,

My ride from Khamsaveth station to the hotel.

These are not motorbike adaptions, they are purpose built.  That's a manual gear box level by the driver's left knee!

The road from the station was nominally tarmac'd but seemed to have been cut up very badly to the point where was piles of dirt for vehicles to navigate around,  It got better once closer in to the urban area.

It's sad that demand for the train is so low: there are many cross-border coaches and minibuses operating (see part 2...).  The low demand results in Vientiane's Khamsaveth station having very poor facilities for arriving visitors - no bank, money changers or ATMs for example.  Cash can help get around other issues, lack of local SIM card, WiFi or taxi rank, for example. I do wonder how long the trains from Udon Thani will operate with such low demand, whether the link can be maintained by just the through trains from Bangkok, or whether the local trains to Nong Khai could be extended.

Post-script: this train was withdrawn by the State Railway of Thailand effective 1st May, 2025. https://x.com/ThaiTrainGuide/status/1915336397659181126